Beachcomber

Beach 74 Street, from RockawayBeach Boulevard to Shore FrontParkway, will become one-waysouthbound (towards the beach)beginning on Thursday, July 17.Angled parking will be marked onthe west curb of the street to allowfor additional parking on thestreet. Beginning on July 17,motorists will no longer be able totransit the street northboundbetween Shore Front Parkwayand Rockaway Beach Boulevard.

The captions accompanying the article on the ordination of the Reverend Peter Dennebaum on page 80 in last week's edition should have noted that the ordination was conducted by the Reverend Michael Caine, Regional Conference Minister for the Metro- Suffolk Association of the United Church of Christ. The Wave apologizes for this oversight.

The media has discovered Rockawayand the rapid developmentthat has overtaken the peninsula.Hardly a week goes by withoutone daily paper or another carryinga story about the peninsulaand its problems. Many of themare incorrect, such as the one wediscussed a few weeks ago thatsaid that visitors coming from thesubway on Beach 116 Street facedempty lots and burned out buildings.The latest article came onWednesday, July 2, when the NewYork Post ran a column by JuliaVitullo-Martin quoting CommunityBoard 14 District Manager JonGaska. Gaska, the point man betweencity agencies and the community,gets a lot of play in thearticles and does his best to dispelthe myths that others write aboutwithout actually coming here.Richard George, who heads theBeach and Bungalow Preservationorganization also gets lotsof ink over his lawsuit against thecity and developers. Basically, thearticles all say the same thing - Rockaway is overdeveloped anddoes not have enough infrastructureto handle all the new peoplecoming to the peninsula, but thatthe new city rezoning plan willmake it all right. We just wish thatsome of the writers of these articleswould come to Rockaway andtake a look around prior to writingabout our problems.

The City Council has trimmed some of its $50 million of "pork" that it doles out to community groups each year. The problem is, some of those groups just don't exist and others are not really registered as non-profits and therefore don't deserve the money. Even with the cuts, more than 2,000 nonprofit groups will get city council member item money for 2008. Most of those organizations are deserving of council help and actually use the money for the public good. In Rockaway, they include the RAA, the RTC, RMAC, little leagues and senior citizen groups. Without groups such as those, Rockaway would be a little worse off. Constant vigilance is needed, however, to insure that phony groups and those who seek to use the money for their own good don't apply.

New York Water Taxi has expandedits service to the weekends, inan attempt to bring tourists fromManhattan to Riis Park and otherlocal venues. The boat will departPier 11 in Manhattan at 9:15 a.m.and 11:45 a.m., arriving at RiisLanding in Rockaway at 10:30a.m. and 1 p.m., respectively. Theboat will depart Riis Landing forWall Street at 2:30 and 5:30 p.m.Those boats will get you to Manhattanat 3:45 p.m. and 6:45 p.m.

Rockaway has been flooded with police officers recently due to the spate of killings in Far Rockaway and on the subway platform at Beach 98 Street. Those cops, however, are from specialized units and the annual summer detail. The actual number of cops assigned to our two precincts is down by ten percent, officials say. In fact, the citywide number of cops is down to 35,700 officers from a high of 40,800 in 2001. The present levels are the lowest the city has seen since 1992. There are 1,800 openings, with far too few recruits to fill the quota. What that translates to is fewer cops on patrol, fewer patrol cars on each tour and a slower response time to crime. Unfortunately, the same holds true for the emergency medical service. In one recent case, a local had to wait more than one hour for an ambulance to show up from Howard Beach because all three of Rockaway's ambulances were tied up on runs. Just last week, the police requested an ambulance for a "heavy bleeder" in Rockaway Park and were told that no ambulance was available, that the EMS was "in alert," which means it had more jobs than it could handle, and that the next available unit would be sent to their location, but that it would take a while. That is just not acceptable.

The Wounded Warriors are comingback to Rockaway this weekend.On Saturday, July 12, FlipMullen and his wife, Rita, will hosta fundraiser. It will be held from 6to 10 p.m. on the beach block ofBeach 134 Street.

The eighth annual Function At The Junction will be held on Saturday, July 26 at Bayswater Park, Bay 32 Street and Beach Channel Drive. This annual get-together for former Rockaway residents is open to all, and will run from 8 a.m. until 7 p.m.

Pointing out how tough it is topark in the local area, we have towonder why Congressman AnthonyWeiner would hold a Sundaymeeting at PS 114 in BelleHarbor when it is near-impossibleto park anywhere near the schoolduring summer months. In thesame vein, why would the RockawayRepublican Club host astrategist for presidential candidateJohn McCain in BreezyPoint, a place where non-residentshave to get permission toenter and where parking isunavailable except by permissionof the cooperative and the paymentof a parking fee.